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    %STREET GANG FOUND CHILD ADOLESCENT REBEL SHARE+940929
  %NEED ACCEPTANCE BELONG TALK HEARD LISTENED LOVED+940929
  %CONFESS SYMPATHIZE AGREE VISIT DISCUSS INFLUENCE+940929
 %CONTROL DIALOGUE COMMUNE COOPERATE CONNECT RELATE 940929

     Street  gangs  engaged  in  criminal activities  when
certain basic human needs are not met in healthy ways   by
families and communities.

     Gangs are formed when groups of people come  together
in perverse and rebellious ways to meet their human  needs
to belong, be accepted, talk, be heard and be understood.

     Humans  are  social  creatures with  deep  needs  for
communal contexts and support.   In the absence of healthy
communal  contexts  and  support many  humans  invent  and
create their  own  communal contexts and support  networks
which reflect,  react and rebel against the  imperfections
in  their  own families and social  environments---and  so
tend to perpetuate those imperfections.

     To  be  healthy, people need to have opportunities to
talk, be heard, be listened to, be understood, sympathized
with, and often agreed with.

     It  is  un-healthy for young people not to  have many
opportunities  to  be  involved in  significant  open  and
honest  discussions,   dialogue,   and  sharing  of  their
concerns,  fears,  desires,  hopes and aspirations.     In
communal  contexts where such opportunities are inadequate
or  perverted;  and  young  people are left to  their  own
devices---young  people are  bound  to  invent  their  own
imperfect  opportunities, and to form street gangs engaged
in criminal activities.

     When  parents,   teachers,   religious  and  business
leaders in a community are not listening to, talking with,
in dialogue with,   and  understanding  the  youth  of the
community---the  youth  form  their  own  isolated  groups
within which to try to get their unmet needs fulfilled  in
whatever ways they  can;   and often they  do so in highly
dysfunctional ways.

     Gangs  mirror   and   amplify   the   addictive   and
codependent   patterns  which  are  present  in  the  non-
functional   and  dysfunctional  community  around   them.
Through   perverse   feed-back-loops   gangs    accentuate
tendencies  towards dishonesty,  deception,  manipulation,
control, coercion, violence and crisis management.

     Gangs   cannot  be  overcome  by  concentrating   the
alienative   attitudes  and  values  which  permeate   the
activities of gangs.
                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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